Expectations
by weloveanyways
Summary: "I'm claustrophobic now. Tight spaces, especially unlit ones, make me nervous." Things have changed for Officer Chen, even as she gets cleared for active duty. LA has a way of making her deal with it head on.


"How do you think you've changed after going through what you did?"

Her therapist never mentioned the event in detail unless Lucy did first. She was still trying to decide if she liked that or not. On the one hand, it softened the blow of memories, but on the other, she felt the irritating prick of the nonspecific words against her skin. After going through you what you did. To some degree, Lucy just wanted her to say it. Say she was kidnapped by a serial killer's partner and stuffed in a barrel, labeled as another body in his body count. Just fucking say it.

Lucy didn't say that, though, because she liked her therapist. She was kind and helpful, and hyper-focusing on one thing she didn't like about her wasn't going to help her. Instead, Lucy said. "I'm claustrophobic now. Tight spaces, especially unlit ones, make me nervous."

* * *

Tim had been acting strange since he pulled her out of the barrel. Not entirely, of course, he still rode her ass about every little thing when she was cleared for duty, but something just felt off. When she asked Nolan and Jackson, they hadn't really given her an answer, and she knew better than to ask Lopez or Harper. He didn't act like she did something wrong, but it was almost like he was uncomfortable or had terrible taste in his mouth.

They were going down to the morgue again to see another body. Lucy had her hands folded in front of her, and both looked straight ahead without talking. She needed to ask him what the hell his problem was because it was starting to get really, really annoying. Plus, her therapist (and her mom and dad) insisted excellent communication was vital.

So, as they went down, Lucy finally got the courage to say something. "Tim?" she asked. He glanced at her.

"What, Boot?" he said. He sounded tired. Jokes on him, she guessed, because she was tired too.

"Can you tell me what -"

And then, the earthquake happened.

* * *

Her head was buzzing, there was a loud ringing in her ears, and goddamn it, her head really hurt. Something large was on top of her, and she was pretty sure she smelled smoke. The ground was still tremoring lightly. She let out a cough. "Ouch."

"Boot." A muffled voice from on top of her. Tim.

Lucy remembered what happened. The second the ground began shaking, Tim had practically tackled her to the floor. He still had an arm wrapped around her as he began to push himself off her.

"Boot." He repeated, and Lucy realized he asked her something.

"Your elbow's in my spleen," she hissed back, and finally, she managed to shove off him completely, and she sat up. She coughed, squinting around. The lights had gone out, but in the darkness of the car she could see it had warped a little. It was a small space. Lucy's breath caught slightly, and her eyes closed.

Not good._ Breathe, Lucy_. She tried to order herself too, but she could feel her heart rate going up as their situation began to sink in. They were trapped in a box until the LAFD could get them out.

"Chen, are you listening to a word I'm saying?" No, she was not, because up until then, she hadn't realized he'd been trying to talk to her. He shined his flashlight in her face, and she realized she was still on the ground. He had stood, having the flashlight in his hand and his radio in the other. The receivers were probably out, just like last time. "Are you hurt?"

"At least a box is better than a barrel," Lucy blurted out before she could stop herself. Tim's mouth dropped open a moment, and Lucy began to laugh nervously. Breathe, Lucy. There was no way they were going to run out of air in here. There was too much room, the LAFD would get them out of there, and there was a vent. Temperatures were starting to rise, and she immediately reached up to undo the top button of her uniform, slowly trying to breathe in and out so she wouldn't hyperventilate.

Tim stooped down, back to his knees to look at her. "Chen - Lucy," he said warily. "Are you alright?"

"No," Lucy snapped, leaning her head back against the wall of the elevator. Sudden spike in irritability. Temperature suddenly getting way too hot. Having to stop herself from hyperventilating. She was going to have or had just started to have a panic attack. Closing her eyes didn't help, because when she did, she saw the tight insides of the round barrel, her soft voice vibrating off the barrel walls as she sang herself into unconsciousness.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she almost started choking._ No!_ Her brain yelled at her. _Save your breath. Save your air!_

"Look at me. Lucy, look at me!" Tim grabbed her shoulders, and she and she was once against startled out of her head, looking at him with wide eyes. He was close to her now, deadly serious. "Take a deep breath." Her chest hitched and all she was able to do was wheeze. "Try again."

"B-"

"Do it! Look at me, Boot. Come on, I got you." Lucy doesn't know why she should believe him (except for the fact that he is a good cop with a good heart who cares about people) and took a deep breath anyway. "Hold it."

Lucy's cheeks puffed out as she made the air stay in. They were still making uncomfortable eye contact. He wouldn't let go of her gaze. Four, maybe five seconds later, he told her, "Let it go."

He repeated that a couple times before he let her shoulders go and grabbed her wrist to check her pulse. Lucy silently continued to breathe, but it was only a little better. Every blink, every other thought, was drawing her back. It was like this when she slept, too, with vivid dreams and memories of the barrel of Caleb tattooing her side.

"Better?" Tim asked quietly.

Lucy looked down and took her wrist back, shaking her head. "Sorry."

Tim, glancing around the elevator, finally decided that there were going to be there a while. He shifted and sat next to her, back against the elevator wall as he pulled out his phone. "Phone lines down."

"They knew we were coming down," Lucy said, stiffly.

"I wonder if it was a big one."

Lucy didn't answer, only looking at the dent in the adjacent wall.

They fell silent for only a second before she heard Tim sigh and speak again. "You don't have to be sorry." He finally said. Lucy took a deep breath and waited for him to continue. "No one expects you to be alright, Boot." She looked over at him then, letting it out. He wasn't looking at her, instead straight ahead at the wall.

"I've been doing fine." Lucy was arguing. She was using her arguing tone, but she wasn't quite sure where the argument was. Maybe she was being defensive because she wanted to be alright. She wanted to be fine, and it wasn't fair that she wasn't.

Tim scoffed. "You haven't been sleeping." He was right, she hadn't been. Not much, anyway. She kept having nightmares that kept her awake.

"Did Jackson say -"

Tim shot her a look. "Do you think I need Jackson to tell me when my boot isn't well-rested?" He said sharply.

Lucy deflated slightly, running her hands down her uniform and over her thighs. She stretched her legs out in front of her instead of curling them to her chest. She had the room, this time, use it, so her legs wouldn't cramp up.

"You've been acting weird," Lucy muttered.

"Why? Because I made you tackle a naked Santa Claus covered in peanut butter on Christmas Eve?" Tim shot back, and Lucy, despite herself, let out a laugh that sounded more like a distressed cry.

"No. I knew you were going to make me do that the second we took that call."

"Then what do you mean?"

Lucy ran a hand down her face, taking her time before answering. He let her too. "It's - I don't think it's just you. Everyone's been - I feel like I'm in a fishbowl. Everyone knows what's happened, and everyone's trying to be normal, and everything isn't normal anymore." She said it, and suddenly, she feels a little better. She leaned her head back against the elevator wall.

"What's normal, Boot?" Tim asked, and Lucy knew it was a real question and not one to mock her.

"I don't know anymore. Not… Not this, though." Lucy said. "You're nice to me."

Tim snorted, and Lucy shot him a look. She didn't think it was amusing.

"Shouldn't you be testing me on earthquake protocol," Lucy said, agitated. "Or riding me about some sort of -"

"Is that what you want me to do, Chen?" Tim asked, sharply, and they look at each other for a moment. Lucy realized that he hadn't actually thought it was funny either. They were both irritated. "I train rookies, and I try to bend and break them every chance I get, but I'm not going to start quizzing you when you're having a panic attack about getting stuffed in an oil drum for 11 hours and left to die!"

Lucy's jaw tightened, and she looked away from him, taking more deep breaths. They sat in silence for a long time, then. Tim checked his phone and radio a couple times, while she finally checked her phone. She didn't like this phone. Her old one was found shattered against a boulder in the woods, so she had to get a new one.

She felt like her limbs were made of metal, and she was tired. She would give anything to take a nap if they weren't in a safety hazard.

"What floor did we stop on?" Lucy asked.

"Between 1 and the basement. If the cables break, we won't die." Tim said.

"Well, that's a relief. They must know we're here."

"They know," Tim assured her.

Silence, again. Tim shifted to stand, but Lucy didn't move. She couldn't move. She hadn't stood since Tim tackled her to the ground as the earthquake started.

"Do you remember what you told me when Captain Anderson died?" Lucy asked. The screen of Tim's phone illuminated his face, and he looked down at her. He didn't answer but waited for her to elaborate. "Grief is a hole that can't be filled, but over time it will shrink enough so that you won't fall in every time you take a step," she said, pressing her lips together, eyes closing.

"I do," he said quietly.

"I keep falling in, Tim." Lucy let out a humorless laugh, and she felt him stoop back to her level again. Her eyes opened. "I go over it again and again and again - I still don't know when he slipped the drug into my drink. I replay our conversation in the bar, him leading me outside… And then putting me in his trunk. I woke up in that stupid barrel and there was no way out. My legs still hurt if I sit in that position for too long, and after you took me out, Armstrong's body was just…" Armstrong had died. He had been the one to find her first and hadn't waited for backup. When Nolan and Tim pried the lid off the barrel, and took her out, she remembered seeing his body while Harper and Lopez arrived on scene. After that, though, it's a blur. She was delusional, half-dead as she collapsed.

"And my side…" Lucy put her head in her hands, leaning over herself. She doesn't want to cry in front of him; this time, there was no bathroom to escape to so she could splash water on her face.

"My side has a day of death on it," Lucy said.

"I know." Tim sat next to her again, and he put a tentative hand on her shoulder, gripping it hard. "This is a different kind of grief, Lucy. It -"

"Rages inside me, instead of pulling me down into depression." Lucy finished for him. "I'm angry. All the time. At myself, at Caleb, at… Everything."

"Do you think you should have taken more time off?" he asked quietly. More time off meant she would have been extended in the program, and she definitely hadn't wanted that. Lucy knew, however, that she wouldn't have returned if she couldn't trust herself with a loaded gun. And she knew that there was no way in hell Tim would have allowed her back under him if he had even the slightest inkling she wasn't ready.

"No." Lucy shook her head. "I think I need to get out of this fucking elevator."

Tim let out a sigh as she finally pushed herself to her feet and looked up at the ceiling.

"You won't be able to crawl through," he said flatly. "It's bolted down." Lucy shot him a look.

"And we're between floors., so prying the doors open won't help at all. They probably have some sort of safety on them any way that doesn't allow them to open all the way when they're not on the right floor."

"Very astute, Officer Chen," Tim said, folding his arms over his chest. Lucy sniffed slightly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. She hadn't realized she had been crying, and Tim was kind enough not to mention it.

"So what, then? What's the Tim Bradford way of getting out of this shit? What do we do?"

Tim was quiet for a moment, before he leaned forward, reaching up to touch her arm, gently pulling her back down to the floor. She looked at him for a long time.

"We wait, Lucy," Tim said. "They'll find us. They'll always find us." Lucy shifted to sit back next to him so they were side by side, like they were before. He hadn't taken his hand off her arm like she was going to run away.

"I was afraid we weren't going to get to you in time." Tim admitted quietly. The guilt was evident on his normally unreadable face. Lucy liked to think she had gotten pretty good at reading it. This was, she noted, as difficult for him as it was for her.

"You found me in time." She murmured. He looked down at her.

"Yeah."

"They'll find us in time," Lucy said.

"They know we're here," Tim responded. Lucy noticed then how tired she was and she settled back up against the wall, closing her eyes. "You're not sleeping, are you, Boot?"

"Can't hear you over the sound of my own snoring."

"Chen, I -"

Lucy had already drifted off to sleep, so she couldn't hear the rest of whatever he said. Or maybe she did listen to it, but she wasn't ready to acknowledge it because it made her feel some type of way.

_I'll always find you._

* * *

Approximately three hours after the earthquake, Officer Chen and Officer Bradford were freed from the elevator, with the latter boasting about how he had to have a new sleeping-Boot T-Shirt made.


End file.
